Bard College Bard Digital Commons Senior Projects Spring 2017 Bard Undergraduate Senior Projects Spring 2017 The Origins of the Chinese Communist Party’s Early Marriage Laws Yuan Yuan Bard College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2017 Part of the Asian History Commons, Asian Studies Commons, Civil Law Commons, Family Law Commons, International Relations Commons, Legal Commons, Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Commons, and the Women's History Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Yuan, Yuan, "The Origins of the Chinese Communist Party’s Early Marriage Laws" (2017). Senior Projects Spring 2017. 223. https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2017/223 This Open Access work is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been provided to you by Bard College's Stevenson Library with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this work in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Origins of the Chinese Communist Party’s Early Marriage Laws Senior Project Submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College by Yuan Yuan Annandale-on-Hudson, New York May 2017 Acknowledgements This thesis is in memory of my beloved grandparents, Fengying Wang and Wenbin Li, who both passed away during my time at Bard. They lived through the hardest years in Chinese history: The Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Civil War, and the Cultural Revolution. This Marriage Law Project is in memory of their love and marriage that lasted over 60 years. I would not have been able to finish this project without the support of many people. First, I am deeply indebted to my senior project advisor, Robert Culp, who patiently walked me through all the stages of my research and writing. His intriguing class and illuminating instruction inspired me and provided me with many resources for my topic; he carefully read every draft of my writing and always offered insightful comments. Working with him was a life changing and humbling process. His dedication has inspired me and I will carry this attitude throughout my life. I would also express my appreciation to my GIS advisor Michelle Murray, my role model. I cannot express how much I have learned and been influenced by her as a student and as a young woman. It is her unwavering encouragement and guidance that brought me to this stage. I also owe much to my board member David Shein, who offered me great advice on my writing, kept pushing me to do better, and constantly checked in with me despite his busy administrative life. My gratitude also goes out to Omar Cheta, my first advisor at Bard. Thank you so much for your generosity and support for the last three years, even when you were on sabbatical. You taught me how to read like a historian, how to adapt to life at Bard as an international student, and you gave me valuable suggestions whenever I encountered hardships. I am also indebted to my friends. May, Karin, Carly, Nathanial, Witawin and Thinh. May, my best friend at Bard, thank you for supporting me throughout these years. I will always remember the days that we spent together and the places we went. Karin, Nathanial and Carly, thank you so much for helping me revise this project. It was indeed hard work, and I owe you too much. Witawin and Thinh, thanks for the engaging conversations, and suggestions for my project. I enjoyed our deep conversation. Finally, thanks to my family across the Pacific Ocean. Mom and Dad, thank you for loving me unconditionally, for always believing in me and strengthening me. As your only child who has been thousands of miles away from you, I owe you too much. And Mu, thank you for accompanying me throughout these years. I could not have grown so much without your support. I love you deeply, and I hope I can make you proud. Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter 1: Analysis of the 1931 Marriage Regulations of Chinese Soviet Republic ........................................................................................................................ 9 Chapter 2: Analysis of the 1934 Marriage Law of the Chinese Soviet Republic and Marriage Laws of the Border Areas ................................................................. 30 Chapter 3: Analysis of the Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China...... 51 Appendix ..................................................................................................................... 69 Bibliography ............................................................................................................... 89 1 Introduction The so-called “First Chinese Marriage Law” was the first civil marriage law passed in the People's Republic of China on May 1, 1950, one year after the People’s Republic of China was founded. It was transformative because the Marriage Law was a radical change from existing patriarchal Chinese marriage traditions. It was also highly political because it reflected the Chinese Communist Party’s ideologies on class struggle, land reform, Marxism and Leninism. However, the 1950 Chinese Communist Party’s Marriage Law with its revision on family relations did not come about overnight, but through a long process drawing from various legal works and movements. According to Neil Jeffrey Diamant, in 1931, Marriage Regulations were promulgated in the party’s embattled “soviet” the rural province of Jiangxi. Article 1 provided a total condemnation of the traditional Chinese family; The 1934 Marriage Law was employed as a means to mobilize women to support the revolutionary cause. The idea of abolishing the traditional, patriarchal family system remained unchanged. It was not until 1949 when the Chinese Communist Party took control of the state that they started to implement a new vision of family structure and relationships.1 Though I have a different opinion than Diamant about when the new vision of family structure started, I do believe that the 1950 New Marriage Law was indeed a combination of Jiangxi Soviet Marriage Regulations and experiences from China’s Border Areas. The 1950 Marriage Law, in theory, continued calling for the “abolishment” of the 1 Diamant, Neil Jeffrey. Revolutionizing the Family: Politics, Love, and Divorce in Urban and Rural China, 1949-1968. (Berkeley, Calif.: Univ. of Calif. Press, 2000), 4. 2 traditional marriages, and promoted the idea of monogamy, love-based conjugal families, free choice, the willingness of both parties, and equal rights for both sexes. As the 1950 Chinese Marriage Law was a milestone in China’s legal history, I was especially intrigued by the origin of this law and earlier marriage regulations. I was curious where the New Marriage Law derived from, and how its origin influenced the law. When I researched Chinese scholars’ works, I was very surprised to see that Chinese scholars had been arguing that the origin of the early Chinese Communist Party’s Laws was purely Soviet influenced. The 1921 Marriage Laws of Soviet Russia served a legal model, as the Chinese Marriage Laws were practically replicas of the Marriage Law of the U.S.S.R. Chinese scholars tend to believe the Marxist theory was the foundation of the Chinese Marriage Laws. For instance, Hou Huanhuan, a Chinese scholar enumerates that the following books had a great influence on the liberation of Chinese women and marriage law.2 These books include, German Ideology, Anti-Dühring, and The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. She argues that Marxist Marriage was imbued with anti-feudalism, and anti-capitalism; which was echoed by the main points of the 1950 Chinese Marriage Law that enforced monogamy, equality between men and women, and the protection of women and children.3 She further presumed that the 1950 Chinese Marriage Law must have originated from the 2 Hou, Huanhuan 侯欢欢, “Makesi zhuyi hunyinguan dui zhongguo shoubu hunyinfa de yingxiang” 马克思主义婚姻观对中国首部婚姻法对影响 [The Influence from Marxist Values of Marriage to China’s First Marriage Law], Kaifeng Jiaoyu Xueyue Xuebao.开封教育学院学报. Vol, 35, No.11, 2015, 246. 3 Ibid. 3 Marxist-Leninist theory and the Marriage Laws of the Soviet Russia.4 Similarly, in Li Xiuqing’s article “The Growth of New China’s Marriage Laws and the influence of the Soviet Model”, she claims that since the Marriage Laws of Soviet Russia had been promulgated much earlier, China must have borrowed heavily from them, to the point of translating the texts directly, and then applying them to the earlier Chinese Marriage Regulations.5 She further argues that due to the political chaos of Cultural Revolution which lasted more than ten years from the early 1960s to the late 1970s, the 1980 Chinese Marriage Law did not change much, but was still based on the Soviet experiences, except for China’s One-Child Policy.6 Only recently when China’s planned economy transitioned to a market economy, did ideas about family life change, becoming less tied to socialism.7 The legal historian Fang Yan also holds a similar opinion. In his article “Legislative Transplantation and Localization for Chinese Marriage Law in Modern Time”, he also argues that the Marriage Law was a replica of the 1921 Family Law of the U.S.S.R.8 Specifically, with the help of the Soviet Model, he claims that the legislation of China’s Marriage Law finally stepped into modernity.9 He further argued that, for a long time, China’s legislation held on to its Soviet influence. Not 4 Ibid. 5 Li, Xiuqing 李秀清, “Xinzhongguo hunyinfa de chengzhang yu sulian moshi de yingxiang” 新 中国婚姻法的成长与苏联模式的影响 [The Growth of New China’s Marriage Laws and the influence of the Soviet Model], Falv Kexue 法律科学, 2000, 85.